


and tomorrow still the sun will rise

by brosura



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Major Character Undeath, References to Chronic Illness/Pain, but not for long :3c, discussions of death/dying, just u kno ur standard death acceptance narrative like the best of the pixar films
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-25
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-11-05 07:29:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17914481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brosura/pseuds/brosura
Summary: “I wanted to see you today because I need you to know that I love you,” Noctis finally says.And though he’s thirty-six now, a man by any definition, some part of him still flusters to hear it. Maybe because it’s still a rare word for him to hear out loud and not through actions, maybe because he longs to hear it now more than ever, maybe because it’s Noctis. All he can manage is a half-nervous, “Well, consider me informed. You know I love you too, right?”“I do,” Noctis says, serious in the face of his light-hearted teasing. “But I don’t think you understand what I mean, and I need you to.”In the quiet of Insomnia after the end of the world, Prompto finds out that Noctis loves him and that Noctis is dying over the course of the same hour.





	and tomorrow still the sun will rise

“Fancy meeting you here!” Prompto greets as he parks his motorbike on the stretch of road within shouting distance of the steps of the royal apartments.

Fifteen years ago, there would have been a gate and three security checkpoints he would need to pass to even make it to the front door, provided he still wasn’t on the guest list. Things were different in the five years and some change after the end of the world.

For one, there’s less manpower to staff things like security checkpoints. Second, there’s no gate; it got destroyed during the fall of Insomnia or the final battle or just from the stress of ten years under enemy control.

Third, the royal apartments’ only resident - King Noctis Lucis Caelum CXIV - is more or less left alone these days.

“Fancy meeting _you_ here,” Noctis answers from where he’s sitting on the steps, cane nestled between his knees. “This is where I live.”

“Sure, but you invited me!” he calls back, slipping off his jacket as he approaches the steps. “Or was that a drunk text?”

“It wasn’t,” Noctis says and then smiles at him, easy and warm and balancing the line between playful and genuine.

Something in Prompto’s chest expands and sinks at the sight of it. It’s been a while. He should really visit more often.

_He’ll always miss that smile. He should tell Noctis that._

“Just missing the good old days then?” is what he says instead as he comes to a stop in front of the steps.

“Yeah,” Noctis answers with another of those smiles. “Missed talking to you. How’s it been out there, roughing it in the wilderness?”

“‘Roughing it’? I sleep in a bed in an air conditioned garage. We even got a cat for the bugs and mice. You really have gone soft in your old age, city boy,” he teases.

“And you’re starting to sound like Gladio,” Noctis retorts. “A cat, huh? Pinned you as a dog person.”

“Like them both!” Prompto says cheerfully. “Turns out Cindy doesn’t like dogs barking around Hammerhead, though. Says it gives it the wrong kind of reputation. So it’s just V-8 for now.”

“She named the cat after an engine?”

“ _I_ named the cat after an engine,” Prompto corrects with a laugh. “Once you hear her purr, dude. You’ll get it.”

Noctis smiles at that. “I’d love to meet her one day. Maybe I’ll make it out to Hammerhead, see how Cindy’s doing, too.”

“She’d love that,” Prompto answers for her because he knows she would. She’s been asking after Noctis like a worried grandmother lately and all but pushed him out the door when he got the text asking if he could make it out to Insomnia to catch up. He guesses that’s a given now that he’s… _well._ He clears his throat. “You’d have to call ahead first. She and Aranea are always going out on little weekend trips, might miss them both but if you get the timing right you could catch them both instead! But hey, that’s enough about us! How’s it been, city boy?”

“Well,” Noctis starts, and the mood shifts palpably.

Prompto knows it can’t be easy, living in this city of ghosts. He knows it can’t be easy spending every day with everyone’s eyes on you. Spending so long bearing their hopes and their future.

Noct bounces his cane between his knees, brows furrowed just enough that it’s noticeable. It’s a familiar look.

“How about this,” Prompto offers, gentle. “I drive you around to check on our old spots and you complain about Ignis on the way?”

“On that old bike?” Noctis snorts, but he looks relieved at the change of pace.

“Oh, baby,” he coos over his shoulder to his bike. “Don’t listen to him! He’s just a soft, old city boy!”

“Whatever,” Noctis snorts and rises to his feet.

Prompto grins and offers him a hand with a bow and a flourish. “My liege.”

Noctis slaps it away.

* * *

 

The sun is setting when they make it back to Noct’s apartment and they sit on the steps to drink in the last orange-pink drops of it.

“... and that’s why you’ll never see me underneath one of those old buggies any time soon.”

Noctis laughs and it might be at the joke, might just be the breathless delight of being around each other again. That’s why he’s laughed at what Noctis has complained about so far. Less commiseration, more the excitement at being able to have this moment, one where the two of them can just sit together on the steps in a comfortable silence.

The almost-year since they’d last seen each other has been busy, after all.

He’s heard all about it, all about the surviving council’s snobbery and screeching as they approached an era where the people ruled the country and not the nobility. He’s heard all about how upset everyone’s been that Noctis announced he had no intention to continue the royal line.

That he was instead to let the Lucis Caelums rest with the Crystal beneath the shroud of history, a dynasty of a different age.

A legend to be lost when the time came to forget them.

Prompto wonders if it’s because he’s finally found an answer to the guilt he carried when he returned, that one family housed both the sickness and the cure. Prompto wonders if it’s because he still misses Luna.

Either way, King Noctis Lucis Caelum CXIV will be the last King of Lucis.

He seemed relieved to say it, half-casual as if it was just some old news. In some ways, it already was. Noctis wasn’t shy about establishing a government in their new world that didn’t depend on the shoulders of one. So even from outside the city walls, Prompto could see this coming.

And maybe it’s selfish of him, but he’s relieved to hear it, too.

“Get a load of that sunset,” Prompto finally says into the comfortable silence between them.

He just says it because it’s beautiful the way every sunrise and sunset has been since the dawn returned to them five years ago, but he understands why Noctis tenses beside him.

It used to be dangerous to travel after dark, and then it was dangerous to travel all the time. Noctis never had to live through that long enough that it affected him, never had to learn to live through constant danger until you became an almost reckless kind of hopeful. He never had the certainty that the sun wouldn’t rise be replaced with the certainty it _would_ so quickly the relief of it left him giddy and careless.

Or maybe that’s just a Prompto thing.

Either way, Noctis thinks their peace is ending, so Prompto is expecting it when he says, somber and serious, “Thank you for coming to see me today.”

“Of course,” Prompto answers with a small frown and gives Noctis as reassuring a grin as he can muster.  “Always love spending time with you, man. When you retire, we should hang out more. Like we did when we were kids! But instead of blowing time at the arcade we could, like, go bowling, wear socks with sandals, just cool old man stuff like that. Deal?”

“Deal,” Noctis laughs a little, and it’s a relief to hear even though some part of Prompto feels the pang of loss as he hears it. _He’ll miss this. He really wishes things were that simple still._ “Are you- are you leaving soon?”

“Probably not, I was thinking of staying the night somewhere,” Prompto says and watches as Noctis relaxes, but into something more thoughtful than he was expecting.

“Oh, that’s good,” he says and fiddles with his cane again. “I wanted to tell you something before you left.”

Prompto raises his eyebrow. “Well, shoot.”

He regrets his nonchalance immediately because it seems like heavy news Noctis is about to tell him, with the way he catches his cane in his hands and clutches it close, brow drawn with something inscrutable and serious.

“I wanted to see you today,” Noctis starts and stops and Prompto finds his own lungs stuttering in resonance.

There’s a brief moment that feels like a lifetime where Noctis sits in silence, biting his lip, a touch of sadness in his expression and Prompto fears a million things at once until his mind focuses on one point, one terrifying possibility that reverberates in his head again and again.

 _He knows._ Prompto thinks, feeling his gut drop because he wasn’t ready, he wasn’t ready but _Noctis knows. He knows, he-_

“I wanted to see you today because I need you to know that I love you,” Noctis finally says.

_Oh._

That wasn’t what he was expecting to hear.

And though he’s thirty-six now, a man by any definition, some part of him still flusters to hear it. Maybe because it’s still a rare word for him to hear out loud and not through actions, maybe because he longs to hear it now more than ever, maybe because it’s Noctis. All he can manage is a half-nervous, “Well, consider me informed. You know I love you too, right?”

“I do,” Noctis says, serious in the face of his light-hearted teasing. “But I don’t think you understand what I mean, and I need you to.”

“Okay,” Prompto says and swallows hard even though his mouth feels suddenly dry because it’s all he can do, all he can manage. “Okay, I’m listening.”

There’s a shuffle as Noctis turns towards him, just slightly, but enough that Prompto is critically aware of where their legs touch as serious and tired eyes meet his.

“I love you, Prompto,” Noctis repeats. “I don’t- I don’t know when it started, I think I’ve been in love with you for almost as long as I’ve known you. But all I know is that when I- when I thought I lost you, I lost a piece of me with you. It was like- like Luna all over again and I- I couldn’t-”  

He pauses to let out a shuddering sigh and rubs his fist where its clenched over his cane. “And when we found you again, it was like a dream. And I remember being so _angry_ because of what they did to you, and what I must have done to make you think I could ever hate you, and so relieved because you were safe, and so _happy_ that you wanted to stay with me, even after everything. And somewhere in that mess in that godforsaken place, I realized that that was all I wanted. That I wanted you by my side just like I wanted to stay by your side, for the rest of our lives.

“And I remember thinking, _‘I’ll tell him after, once this is over.’_ But we were so back to the wall, I never got the chance. And then after, we were separated for so long. And after that, well, it just seemed like it was never over.”

It’s quiet for a moment and Prompto lets the words sink in.

There’s a stupid, optimistic joy bubbling in his chest, the relief and giddiness that _Noctis loves him back_ , something he’d never thought possible. But there’s something sour turning in his gut because _why now_ of all times. Why now, when he’s finally made his peace? Why now, when he’s just going to give Noctis more pain again in the end?

Noctis doesn’t deserve this. He doesn’t deserve this, either.

But a part of him still thinks, _He loves me._

Like it’s a good thing. Like it’ll be ok.

It’s too much at once, so he draws in a shaking breath and lets the flood of emotions overwhelm him so completely he finds he can’t express any one of them in particular.

“I-” Noctis starts, clears his throat. “I’m sorry. I know it’s a lot. But I- I needed to tell you.”

Prompto nods because that’s all he can manage. “It’s ok.”

“I-” Noctis starts again, but this time he doesn’t follow through.

He just sighs and slumps where he’s sitting next to Prompto and it’s more somber than Prompto would expect of someone making a confession like this. But he’s not exactly being receptive or responsive, and Noctis can’t know why. Or at least, he hopes he doesn’t know why.

“I’m not,” Prompto finally tries because he doesn’t like leaving Noctis in this silence. “I’m not upset or anything. I just, I need time to think.”

“Take your time,” Noctis answers, but there’s a nervous tension there like he’s not sure if they’ll actually have the time.

In a way, he’s right. _Almost like he knows._

“Can I,” Prompto manages, feeling the fear catch in his throat. He didn’t want this conversation to happen like this. He wasn’t sure he was ready for it at all. “Can I ask why you’re telling me this now?”

Noctis is quiet for a long, terrible moment again before he lets out a bitter laugh.

“Funny you should ask, because I have something else I need to tell you,” he says in a tone that’s toeing the line between apologetic and panicked. “Sorry you gotta listen to all my problems today.”

“Don’t apologize,” Prompto rushes to comfort, with the guiltiest kind relief.

 _His_ problems, not Prompto’s. Whatever they’re going to talk about, it’ll be terrible and heavy and Noctis won’t come out of it the same. But maybe, maybe Prompto won’t have to add to that weight just yet. Maybe he can help, if only for a moment.

“No, I,” Noctis pauses, shakes his head. “We can stop. If you need time, we can stop.”

“No, really,” Prompto insists. “If you want to talk about something, we can talk about it now. If it’s worse for you to hold onto it, then just spill. I can- I can be here. If- if you’re ready, I mean.”

Prompto winces because _he sure is one to talk,_ but Noctis doesn’t seem to notice.

He’s too deep in thought, anyway, brows furrowed in that way they always did when the words couldn’t catch up to the storm of thoughts in his head.

“I don’t know,” Noctis mutters, more to himself than anything as his frown deepens. “I don’t know what’s the best way to-”

Prompto has seen a lot of that look before all this, but he can’t fix it the way he used to be able to. He can’t give Noctis a playful shove and drag them off to do something else, anything else. They’re not kids that need a distraction from the terrible uncertainty of the future.

They’re living in it. They have to face it.

But for now, all he can do is be here for Noctis when he’s ready.

Noctis sighs when he seems to decide he is, and it feels like world shifts underneath them when he asks, “Do you know how Luna died?”

“No,” Prompto answers, quiet and honest. He hadn’t seen it happen, and they never wanted to talk about it.

Noctis still doesn’t seem to want to talk about it, the shuddering breath he takes sounds hesitant, heavy. “That day in Altissia, Ardyn killed her. But that didn’t-”

He pauses, wringing his hands together. It’s small, but Prompto can see the slightest tremor.

“She died that day, but she _was_ dying for a long time before that,” he finally says. “Ravus told me about it. Being the Oracle was killing her, slowly and painfully, but she still kept moving. She was always the strongest of us.”

“She was,” Prompto agrees. She’d given some of that strength to him all those years ago and he’ll never stop being grateful for it.

“But,” Noctis continues. His shoulders curve forward almost imperceptibly. “No other Oracle died the way she did. That wasn’t, it wasn’t a thing that happened before, even when they were saving people from the Scourge. They died by violence or old age or exhaustion, sure, but never like _that._ Never by inches. She died that way because of the prophecy. Forging the covenants was killing her.”

Noctis takes in a breath that reaches his shoulders and when he releases it, it seems to press every part of him down with its weight. His head bows and he clasps his hands together. It almost looks like he’s praying.

“Like it’s killing me.”

The words make sense to Prompto. In some sad way, he was expecting them, even.

But he doesn’t want them to click. He doesn’t want to understand them because he doesn’t want to accept that after everything, Noctis is _still_ paying the price of his bloodline. That after all they’d sacrificed, all they’d lost and gained, they just kicked the ball down the road and now that they’ve caught up to it, Noctis is going to lose everything.

_He wanted to believe that Noctis would outlive him._

But it isn’t about what he wants, and he knows this. He knows better.

Like he knows better than to ask if there’s anything that can be done to stop this. It’s a miracle Noctis survived that night at all, and whether they want to admit it or not, they’ve all been waiting for the other shoe to drop.

It isn’t as if it’s fate they’re fighting against anymore, after all. It’s not gods and prophecies and things so fantastic Prompto could dare to hope that some noble deed or brave act could save them.

It isn’t fate they’re fighting. It’s time.

It’s time that wears mountains into canyons and sends gods and prophecies away to rot in legends. It’s time and exhaustion and all the things that accumulate when a human body is forced to take more than it’s built to handle.

_Or when a human body wasn’t built to last in the first place._

So he doesn’t ask what they can do about it, if there’s anything that _can_ be done. He knows better.

He only asks, “How long do you have?”

It’s quiet and tired with understanding and Noctis droops at the sound of it.

“Five years, give or take.”

 _Huh._ “How long have you known?”

Noctis laughs then, bitter and resigned. “A little less than that.”

Since he came back, then. Since he’d survived his final fight with Ardyn and his time on the throne with a look of confusion mixed with joy and relief and sorrow and so many other things. He’d been waiting for the other shoe to drop, too.

“It’s not like I meant to hide it from you, from any of you,” Noctis starts. “A lot of it I just spent hoping it was just normal, you know? I’ve always been well, _like this_. The headaches, the weakness, the...everything. I just figured it was normal that after all that, it would get worse.

“But I fainted last year in a council meeting and it took me out of commission for weeks. Ignis had me in the office of every doctor that still practiced and then some and none of them could figure out what was wrong with me. All they could figure was that I wouldn’t last much longer.

“Believe me,” he sighs. “I meant to tell you earlier, I wanted to tell you as soon as I found out but, well-”

“I get it,” Prompto offers. Life in this new world is hard even when it’s simple, when it’s just survival. Making time for the complicated things, for an _‘I love you and I’m also dying’_ conversation is its own shitty mountain to climb and it feels like it’s too much to ask someone to climb it with you. “There’s a lot to think about.”

“Yeah,” Noctis says around a laugh. “But I needed you to know. I needed you to know everything, all of it. And you don’t, you don’t need to do anything. I’m not asking you to move back to the city or spend more time with me or to- to love me back. I’m not asking you to plan your life around me anymore. I just needed you to know. It just felt wrong not telling you.”

Prompto nods, slow with the weight of the thoughts swimming in his head. There are words gathering in his throat, threatening to spill out, but an inexplicable fear still traps them there. He wants to laugh. _Noctis already did the hard part. Why couldn’t he just say it?_

But he can’t laugh, can’t say anything. He presses his palms together, intertwines his fingers, tries to bring himself back with the feeling. He wonders what he looks like to Noctis, if it looks like he’s praying.

Noctis seems to misunderstand, though, because what he speaks into the silence Prompto has left him is pitched and nervous.

“And someone once told me I should be honest about the way I feel because you never know what might happen. It took me this long for it to stick, I guess. Or maybe not, since what it took was me finding out exactly what’s going to happen to me to-”

“Hey, Noctis,” he finally manages, voice cracking around the words.

“Yeah?” Noctis responds, tentative and almost shy.

“There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you, too,” he admits before he can stop himself, before he can act like not having the words is a good excuse not to say anything. “Do you remember what I told you back then before the crystal? About what I am?”

“Yeah,” Noctis sighs and Prompto understands. He doesn’t like remembering Gralea, either.

“Well, I don’t know if I told you this, but MTs, or at least the type I am, weren’t just random babies picked for top secret experiments. They were- _we_ were cut from the same cloth. _Cloned_. Crafted in the image of our father and all that. And, uh...”

He pauses for a second, feeling the words catch. He takes a shuddering breath, gives an approximation of a laugh.

“The thing about being reheated leftovers and not made from scratch is, well, the expiration date comes around a lot faster.”

The silence between them is heavy, but it isn’t awful. There’s no tipping point, no straw that breaks the camel’s back. It’s just more weight. Nothing they’re not used to.

“How long?” Noctis finally asks, a quiet and understanding echo.

“If you’re asking how long I’ve known, it’s… it’s the same as you, probably longer. I had suspicions that something was wrong after l, after _Niflheim_ , but I didn’t want to believe that they could be right. Or maybe in some part of my mind I _did_ believe them. Maybe I thought I deserved it. I just hoped I-” _would live long enough to see you again._ He swallows. “I just hoped I would last.

“But after you came back, things didn’t get better, things got a little worse and I couldn’t keep on acting like I was ok not knowing anything. I asked Aranea to take me back, you know, _there._ Found out that they were going for quantity over quality during the mass production stage. Figures, right?

“So, if you’re wondering how long I’ve got,” he swallows again and gives Noctis a shaky smile. “Can’t be sure, but wouldn’t you know! By Aranea’s estimate, I’ve got five years, give or take. Feel like it’s an overestimate, sometimes. You know her, the glass is half-full if you have to fill it yourself and all that. Five years sounds good to me, though. Sounds like a goal.”

“Anyway, what I’m trying to say by all that is, well,” he pauses and reaches up to drop a hand on Noct’s shoulder, more so that he can lean heavier against his side than anything. “You’re not alone.”

 _Does it feel better, Noctis?_ he wonders. _To know you’re not dying alone._

It feels better to Prompto.

“So,” Prompto finally says, more a sigh than anything. “You love me, huh?”

“I do,” Noctis answers. “I’ve loved you for a long time, Prompto. I love you for everything that you are. And I- I should have told you sooner.”

There’s the familiar pain of regret in his tone, but it’s not the stifling kind. Prompto thinks he understands.

Maybe they would have had more time together if they had done this sooner, if they had made red-cheeked confessions when they were young and every moment felt like a last chance.

But maybe Noctis would have died on his father’s throne on that last long stretch of night before the dawn. Or maybe they wouldn’t have been ready for each other at twenty, when they were still weighed down with things that were heavy and personal, things that Prompto doesn’t remember being ready to share.

Or maybe they would have lasted, maybe they would have had twenty years with each other instead of five, if they’re lucky.

Or maybe they wouldn’t have said anything to each other at all.

They could have come together and fallen apart a thousand ways.

But this is the way they do come together: nearing forty and with little hope of seeing fifty, sitting on the steps to Noct’s apartment like they’re on the edge of twenty again.

Prompto wonders if he would have blushed if Noctis had told him those words decades ago, if his heart would have thrummed too brightly in his chest. As it is, he’s only quiet, the weight of the air between them full of meaning but not so dense with it that it’s stifling. Noctis breathes beside him, loud enough to hear and heavy enough to feel where they’re pressed up next to each other.

It’s a peaceful moment, one with finality. The end of a chapter instead of the beginning.

It doesn’t matter that much to Prompto, though. Not really. These days he’ll take anything he can get. He’ll take each moment he’s alive, every shake and pain. He’ll take every day the sun rises.

He’ll take an _I love you_ meant to be a _goodbye_.

He’ll take five years.

“I meant it before,” Prompto explains. “What I said. I didn’t understand you meant the same thing, but I still _meant_ it. I love you, too. I’ve always loved you.”

Noctis lets out a little breath that might be an _oh,_ but the shape of it matters less than the feel of it between them. The slight shift where they’re pressed together, Prompto’s hand still resting on Noct’s shoulder. Noct’s heart beating steadily in his chest like it doesn’t know he’s dying, like it only cares that Prompto can feel it, like it’s asking Prompto’s own failing heart to join it, to beat in rhythm until they’re on one strong wavelength, one stable pulse.

It’s one breath that Noctis releases, but it feels like it belongs to both of them.

“You really had to beat me to the punch both times, huh?” Prompto laughs. “Makes it seem like I’m just riding the bandwagon.”

“Yeah,” Noctis laughs in turn and it is such a wonderful sound to share. “Sorry, but you know how it is. Royalty gets to set the trends.”

“Even after the collapse of modern society,” Prompto mock-complains with a shake of his head.

Noctis laughs even though they’re sitting on the proof that affairs after the end of the world are a paradox of scraped-together prosperity. The city is still a different place, is still a ruin and a graveyard in its own way.

But life still clings to its skeleton and flourishes. Grass and tiny white flower-weeds grow through shattered squares, people flutter through once-empty streets on business other than just survival. A steady pulse thrums through Insomnia’s veins once more.

Two men sit on the steps of an apartment in a city that survived more than they did, that will go on after them.

It isn’t a difficult thought, though. To know that no matter what happens, the world will keep going without them.

That tomorrow, like the day before, the sun will still rise.

It’s easier to take.

Which is why it’s easier for Prompto to have the next thought, as selfish as he would have found it before he knew that Noctis loved him and that Noctis was dying just like he loved Noctis and he was dying.  

“You know, what you said earlier, about me not having to move to the city?” He pauses to give Noctis time to answer, but all he gets is a curious half-smile and a tilt of his head. “I have an idea.”

**Author's Note:**

> in the next chapter: a RAGING RETIREmENT PARTY
> 
> thank you to pika for enduring old men sads for all of you until the time came to post this, to raka and paula for giving me the sad old man ideas, and to all of you for taking the time to read this fic :')
> 
> if you liked this fic, or would just like to scream at me for my transgressions, please feel free to leave a comment or hit me up on [tumblr](http://brosura.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/bigkatsanctuary)!!
> 
> thank you all again! you guys are the best!


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